Review: Smokehouse Charcoal BBQ’s Dry-Aged Wagyu, Great World City

Kuriya Dining’s new baby at Great World City, Smokehouse Charcoal BBQ brings in a whole new concept of a self-service BBQ after buying your meats from a ‘supermarket’ that provides for both BBQ and shabu-shabu options.

So how it works is, you pick your meats, drinks and dessert from the retail section (that also sells sake and other condiments); pay a cover charge of $10 ($8 for lunch) for free flow of salad, soups and rice; and do your own BBQ at the table. There was also a chart to help us understand the parts of the cow the meat comes from, marbling, texture and its rarity.

After a quick brief about the way things worked by a friendly service staff, we headed straight to the meat counter to have a look at the cuts of meat. The variety is honestly quite impressive with the place showcasing their premium meats dry-aged for 17-25 days in a special room that visitors can peer into. They also serve up more rare cuts of meat like chuck flap, beef tongue and flank steak.

Once we’d decided on the pieces we’d like to try on top of the mixed set to share, we went to the counter to make payment and were shown to our seats.

I recommend going for the set deals that are on at any given time for better value. As you can see, the prices for just a couple of pieces of good cuts can add up. The set you see below for two including two beers cost us around SGD$100, including the free flow of salad, soup and rice.

The salad bar was limited in variety but all the ingredients were fresh including the dressing. The garlic fried rice and miso soup were satisfactory. All in all, I’d say all the cuts of meat was actually of really good quality. Absolutely delicious when grilled with just a sprinkle of salt or even with the various sauces concocted by Kuriya’s chefs.

But given a concept that might leave many slightly confused, and prices that aren’t exactly easy on the wallet, it might be quite a challenge getting people to come in more regularly. Perhaps if Smokehouse starts working on a customer-friendly system or price their meats more competitively for a casual, self-service concept.